Posted on 03/08/2020 7:42:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is there or is there not a shortage of kits to test for the coronavirus? That the question even has to be asked does not reflect well on the administration's response to the crisis.
And yet, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC News on Friday there was no shortage, contradicting the White House and health professionals across the country.
“There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been,” Azar said on ABC News Friday. “We will have by the end of this weekend over 1.2 million tests around America in public health labs as well as in private and commercial labs, and that is scaling up by the millions, ramping up rapidly.”
Vice President Mike Pence told the media on Thursday that the U.S. would come up short of a million test kits distributed by the end of the week.
Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the federal government's coronavirus response, made the acknowledgment Thursday while visiting a factory in Minnesota, the BBC reported.
"We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," he said.
The BBC said that later, speaking in Washington, Pence added: "We still have a ways to go to ensure that tests are available."
The BBC said Pence instead moved the goal to next week, when he predicted kits for 1.2 million people would be available.
Azar is correct when he says that manufacture of test kits is "ramping up rapidly." Pence says that 4 million kits will be shipped by the end of next week.
Americans are going to need them.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
You’d REALLY think that they’d get their stories straight before opening their yaps. How hard is it to have their staff people make some phone calls and align the messages? Really??!!
One should be able to go buy a test kit at Walgreens, even if it has a significant error rate.
That the CDC restricts test kits is anti-American.
The media have glommed in to ths aspect of the coronavirus situation, to push a narrative, that the Trump administration has completely mishandled this situation with the virus.
Politically, I’m sure we will see a neat transition, to a narrative that only good Democrats know how to fight public health problems, thus, one should vote Democrat.
.Gov will always fail you.
Do the people running your local medical rackets really want to test so many people? Think about that. It’s not the Trump Administration—not even the CDC. Most local medical people—especially those in local offices—are lefties. The universities screen and educate them to be sure.
Pence is in charge. If the message is muddled, it’s his fault and his responsibility to get the facts straight and get everyone on the same page.
The CDC along with WHO are not to be taken in full trust...lots of anti Trump people who would love to damage him and as the Obama people were famous for saying “never let a crisis go to waste”....I liked hearing Dr. Ben Carson on Maria Bartaroma this morning...Now him I trust with medical info! I wish Trump had put him in charge!
"Available" will probably mean that the kits will be in large unopened boxes at a small number of state medical facilities. "Available" will not mean "easily accessible for general use."
Once the kits are available, the infected counts will skyrocket, and the press will be on overdrive.
If they are lefties, would not they want to test to show how badly Trump is underestimating this?
Paranoid much?
The press (shills for the leftofascists) would like nothing better for this country to be put on lockdown/shutdown for the next three months and plunged into a Depression.
Reasons should be obvious.
Excellent point.
And not just the press. I bet the test kits cannot separate contagious patients from previously infected but no-longer-contagious patients, or genuinely sick patients from those who will recover without professional care. If I am right, there will be a lot of this: "I tested positive! I'm gonna die unless you put me in the hospital right now!"
PJ article based on two day old fake news uber-leftist anti-trump business insider article and two-day old fake news BBC article ...
here’s a pence statement from the white house from two days ago (Friday, March 6, 2020):
“But the American people deserve to know that we are ready and that, because of the President’s leadership and because of extraordinary efforts by CDC and Health and Human Services and our partners in state labs around the country, we have the testing necessary to be able to provide tests to all the states that have requested it.
As I said yesterday, we’ve been able to provide tests to all the state jurisdictions and labs that have requested it. And I’m pleased to report that all state labs have the test. And now, because of the change that President Trump implemented at the FDA a week ago, now state labs can actually conduct coronavirus tests themselves.
Beyond that, between March 2nd and 5th, we distributed more than 900,000 tests across the country, including 200,000 that could allow 75 individual patients — 75,000 individual patients to be tested.
As the Secretary of HHS just described, by tomorrow another 200,000 tests will be shipped. And by the weekend, another million tests will be shipped around the country, with the expectation that at the end of next week, 4 million tests will be shipped.
We’ve been able to respond to the request of states that have been impacted by the coronavirus. But as I said yesterday, to meet future demand, this week, the President brought together the leading commercial labs in America and asked them to, in effect, partner with the United States in developing tests for the American people.
And I’m proud to say that, just in the last 24 hours, LabCorp, Quest — two of America’s leading commercial laboratories — have announced the test will be available by Monday of this week. The reason that’s important and the reason that meets future demand is because the enormous capacity of these commercial laboratories and others in the country are precisely how we will make coronavirus tests available for your local doctor, available to your pharmacy, and broadly available to the American public.
Tomorrow, Dr. Steve Hahn at the FDA will come to this room and brief in specific our efforts with regard to testing to assure the American public that every effort is being made to provide testing resources not just for state laboratories, not just for universities, not just for hospitals in affected areas, but with the announcement of these major commercial labs, we trust, in a matter of weeks, the coronavirus tests will be broadly available to the public and available to any American that is symptomatic and has a concern about — about the possibility of having contracted the coronavirus.”
so, who you gonna believe: pence task force or business insider and BBC?
“That the CDC restricts test kits is anti-American.”
FDA controls the approval of tests, NOT CDC ...
This thread needs a data dump:
Over in the CV thread we have found a few errors in the numbers, but they are in the ballpark for all the states.
“Day (weeks) late, dollar short” applies. Cat is out of the bag now...further testing will just help track the community spread, not quarantine/isolation planning....unless you do the Chinese Communist Party thing of mandatory quarantine for all citizens in a city/area with draconian consequences for non-compliance.
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